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That OpenAI are institutionally unethical. That such a young company can be become rotten so quickly can only be due to leadership instruction or leadership fai
by throwaway598 2y ago
That OpenAI are institutionally unethical. That such a young company can be become rotten so quickly can only be due to leadership instruction or leadership failure.
- jasonm23 2y agoClearly by design. The most dishonest leadership.
- smt88 2y agoLook at Sam Altman's career and tweets. He's a clown at best, and at worst he's a manipulative crook who only cares about his own enrichment and uses pro-social ideas to give himself a veneer of trustworthiness.
- orlandrescu 2y agoAwfully familiar to the other South-African emerald mine inheritor tech mogul.
- kmeisthax 2y agoI'm starting to think the relatives of South African emerald mine owners might not be the best people to trust...
- fennecbutt 2y agoLmao no point in worrying about AI spreading FUD when people do it all by themselves. You know what AI is actually gonna be useful for? AR source attachments to everything that comes out of our monkey mouths, or a huge floating [no source] over someone's head. Realtime factual accuracy checking pls I need it.
- docmars 2y agoIf it comes packaged with the constant barrage of ridicule and abuse from others for daring to be slightly wrong about something, nobody may as well talk at all.
- postmodest 2y agoWho designs the training set for your putative "fact checker" AI?
- pawelmurias 2y agoYou are not responsible for the sins of your father regardless of how seriously fucked in the head he is.
- Loughla 2y agoNo but there is the old nature versus nurture debate. If you're raised in a home with a parent who has zero qualms about exploiting human suffering for profit, that's probably going to have an impact, right?
- johnisgood 2y agoWhat are you implying here? The answer to the nature vs. nurture debate is "both", see "epigenetics" for more. When considering the influence of a parent with morally reprehensible behavior, it's important to recognize that the environment a child grows up in can indeed have a profound impact on their development. Children raised in households where unethical behaviors are normalized may adopt some of these behaviors themselves, either through direct imitation or as a response to the emotional and psychological environment. However, it is equally possible for individuals to reject these influences. Furthermore, while acknowledging the potential impact of a negative upbringing, it is critical to avoid deterministic assumptions about individuals. People are not simply products of their environment; they possess agency and the capacity for change, and we need to realize that not all individuals perceive and respond to environmental stimuli in the same way. Personal experiences, cognitive processes, and emotional responses can lead to different interpretations and reactions to similar environmental conditions. Therefore, while the influence of a parent's actions cannot be dismissed, it is neither fair nor accurate to presume that an individual will inevitably follow in their footsteps. As for epigenetics: it highlights how environmental factors can influence gene expression, adding a layer of complexity to how we understand the interaction between genes and environment. While the environment can modify gene expression, individuals may exhibit different levels of susceptibility or resistance to these changes based on genetic variability.
- gopher_space 2y ago
- treme 2y agoPlease. Elon's track record to take tesla from concept car stage to current mass production levels and building SpaceX from scratch is hardly comparable to Altman's track record.
- satvikpendem 2y agoIndeed, at least Elon and his teams actually accomplished something worthwhile compared to Altman.
- jajko 2y agoBut he is a manager, not an engineer although he sells himself off as such. He keeps smart capable folks around, abuses most of them pretty horribly, and when he intervenes with products its hit and miss. For example latest Tesla Model 3 changes must have been pretty major fuckup and there is no way he didn't ack it all. Plus all self-driving lies and more lies well within fraud territory at this point. Not even going into his sociopathic personality, massive childish ego and apparent 'daddy issues' which in men manifest exactly like him. He is not in day-to-day SpaceX control and it shows.
- treme 2y ago"A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not ... of superiority but of weakness.”
- Angostura 2y agoAs is repeatedly spamming the same pasta
- formerly_proven 2y agoYou’re confusing mommy and daddy issues. Mommy issues is what makes fash control freaks.
- TechnicolorByte 2y ago
- kaycebasques 2y agoAre you saying that Altman has family that did business in South African emerald mines? I can't find info about this
- kryptogeist 2y agoNo. Some dude that launches rockets did, though.
- xaPe 2y ago[flagged]
- slau 2y agoSurely people trying to build rockets are trying to do _the opposite_ of "bringing people down"?
- schmidtleonard 2y agoThe rockets are reusable, the people are expendable.
- WalterSear 2y agoThey are referring to Elon Musk.
- pseudalopex 2y agoSaying the other suggested there were 2.
- huijzer 2y ago[flagged]
- sumedh 2y ago> you’ll see that he cares a lot about the truth. Didnt he call the cave diver, a pedo and the guy who attacked Pelosi's husband they were in a gay relationship.
- spinach 2y agoHe doesn't seem have much of a filter because of his aspergers, but I think he genuinely believed those things. And they are more on the level of calling people names on the playground anyway. In the grand scheme of things, those are pretty shallow "lies".
- mynameisvlad 2y agoOh so it’s ok to lie and call people a pedophile (which is far beyond playground name-calling; from a famous person a statement like that actually carries a lot of weight) if you genuinely believe it and have Asperger’s? Those might explain his behavior, but it does not excuse it.
- FireBeyond 2y agoMusk fans will contort into pretzels. He genuinely believed it. Just an insult. Just trading shots because the guy called his idea stupid. It’s the RDF.
- smt88 2y agoI have multiple relatives on the spectrum. None of them baselessly accuse strangers of being pedophiles. It's not Musk's lack of filter that makes him unhinged and dangerous. It's that he's deeply stupid, insecure, racist, enamored of conspiracy theories, and powerful.
- 2y ago
- xaPe 2y agoIt didn't take long to drag Elon into this thread. The bitterness and cynicism is unreal.
- xyzzyz 2y agoYou are literally repeating false smears about Elon Mask. No emerald mine has ever been owned by anyone in Elon's family, and Elon certainly didn't inherit any of it. I find it very ironic that you are doing this while accusing someone of being a manipulative crook.
- csomar 2y agoSocial engineering has been a thing well before computers and the internet...
- whoistraitor 2y agoIndeed. I’ve heard first hand accounts that would make it impossible for me to trust him. He’s very good at the game. But I’d not want to touch him with a barge pole.
- nar001 2y agoAny stories or events you can talk about? It sounds interesting
- benreesman 2y agoThe New Yorker piece is pretty terrifying and manages to be so while bending over backwards to present both sides of not maybe even suck up to SV a bit. Certainly no one forced Altman to say on the record that Ice Nine in the water glass was what he had planned for anyone who crossed him, and no one forced pg to say, likewise on the record that “Sam’s real talent is becoming powerful” or something to that effect. It pretty much goes downhill from there.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago> The New Yorker piece is pretty terrifying and manages to be so while bending over backwards to present both sides of not maybe even suck up to SV a bit. Certainly no one forced Altman to say on the record that Ice Nine in the water glass was what he had planned for anyone who crossed him, and no one forced pg to say, likewise on the record that “Sam’s real talent is becoming powerful” or something to that effect. Article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...
- schmidtleonard 2y agoHoly shit I thought he was just good at networking, but it sounds like we have a psychopath in charge of the AI revolution. Fantastic.
- hackernewds 2y agothe name OpenAI itself reminds me every day of this.
- genevra 2y agoI knew their vision of open source AI wouldn't last but it surprised me how fast it was.
- baq 2y agoThat vision, if it was ever there, died before ChatGPT was released. It was just a hiring scheme to attract researchers. pg calls sama ‘naughty’. I call him ‘dangerous’.
- olalonde 2y agoI'm still finding it difficult to understand how their move away from the non-profit mission was legal. Initially, you assert that you are a mission-driven non-profit, a claim that attracts talent, capital, press, partners, and users. Then, you make a complete turnaround and transform into a for-profit enterprise. Why this isn't considered fraud is beyond me.
- smt88 2y agoMy understanding is that there were two corporate entities, one of which was always for-profit.
- w0m 2y agoIt was impractical from the start; they had to pivot before a they were able to get an LLM proper out (before ~anyone had heard of them)
- deadbabe 2y agoIt’s “Open” as in “open Pandora’s box”, not “open source”. Always has been.
- raverbashing 2y agoThe startup world (as the artistic world, the sports world, etc) values healthy transgression of the rules But the line between healthy and unlawful transgression can be a thin line
- WalterSear 2y agoThe startup world values transgression of the rules.
- andrepd 2y agoMany easily fooled rubes believe that veneer, so I guess it's working for him.
- comboy 2y agoI'm surprised at such a mean comment and lots of follow-ups with agreement. I don't know Sam personally, I've only heard him here and there online from before OpenAI days and all I got was a good impression. He seems smart and pretty humble. Apart from all openai drama which I don't know enough to have an opinion, past-openai he also seems to be talking with sense. Since so many people took time to put him down there here can anybody provide some explanation to me? Preferably not just about how closed openai is, but specifically about Sam. He is in a pretty powerful position and maybe I'm missing some info.
- FartyMcFarter 2y agoPeople who have worked with him have publicly called him a manipulative liar: https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_openai_employee_describes_sam_altman_as/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1804u5y/former_open...
- tim333 2y ago[flagged]
- jakupovic 2y agoI shared stage with Sam at one point for an hour and was not impressed. Obviously I was wrong as Sam has accomplished so much in the meantime, but my initial impression wasn't much. How he did it is for him to know and for others to ...
- mewpmewp2 2y agoWhat do you mean by not impressed?
- throwaway2037 2y agoProbably did not see him as a future billionaire.
- 2y ago
- tinyhouse 2y agoWell, more than 90% of OpenAI employees backed him up when the board fired him. Maybe he's not the clown you claim he is.
- iinnPP 2y agoPeople are self-motivated more often than not.
- llamaimperative 2y agoOr they didn’t want the company, their job, and all of their equity to evaporate
- tinyhouse 2y agoWell, if he's a clown then his departure should cause the opposite, no? And you're right, more than 90% of them said we don't want the non-profit BS and openness. We want a unicorn tech company that can make us rich. Good for them. Disclaimer: I'm Sam's best friend from kindergarten. Just joking, never met the guy and have no interest in openai beyond being a happy customer (who will switch in a heartbeat to the competitors' if they give me a good reason to)
- llamaimperative 2y ago> Well, if he's a clown then his departure should cause the opposite, no? Nope, not even close to necessarily true. > more than 90% of them said we don't want the non-profit BS and openness. We want a unicorn tech company that can make us rich. Good for them. Sure, good for them! Dissolve the company and its charter, give the money back to the investors who invested under that charter, and go raise money for a commercial venture.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skeeter2020 2y agoI fear your characterization diminishes the real risk: he's incredibly well resourced, well-connected and intelligent while being utterly divorced from the reality of the majority he threatens. People like him and Peter Thiel are not simple crooks or idiots - they truly believe in their convictions. This is far scarier.
- hot_cereal 2y agohow does one divorce the belief that technology can be a force for good from the reality that the gatekeepers are so committed to being the most evil they can be
- ben_w 2y agoWe already know there's been a leadership failure due to the mere existence of the board weirdness last year; if there has been any clarity to that, I've missed it for all the popcorn gossiping related to it. Everyone including the board's own chosen replacements for Altman siding with Altman seems to me to not be compatible with his current leadership being the root cause of the current discontent… so I'm blaming Microsoft, who were the moustache-twirling villains when I was a teen. Of course, thanks to the NDAs hiding information, I may just be wildly wrong.
- Sharlin 2y agoEveryone? What about the board that fired him, and all of those who’ve left the company? It seems to me more like those people are leaving who are rightly concerned about the direction things are going, and those people are staying who think that getting rich outweighs ethical – and possibly existential – concerns. Plus maybe those who still believe they can effect a positive change within the company. With regard to the letter – it’s difficult to say how many of the undersigned simply signed because of social pressure.
- ben_w 2y ago> Everyone? What about the board that fired him, I meant of the employees, obviously not the board. Also excluded: all the people who never worked there who think Altman is weird, Elon Musk who is suing them (and probably the New York Times on similar grounds), and the protestors who dropped leaflets on one of his public appearances. > and all of those who’ve left the company? Happened after those events; at the time it was so close to being literally employee who signed the letter saying "bring Sam back or we walk" that the rest can be assumed to have been off sick that day even despite the reputation the US has for very limited holidays and getting people to use those holidays for sick leave. > It seems to me more like those people are leaving who are rightly concerned about the direction things are going, and those people are staying who think that getting rich outweighs ethical – and possibly existential – concerns. Plus maybe those who still believe they can effect a positive change within the company. Obviously so, I'm only asserting that this doesn't appear to be due to Altman, despite him being CEO. ("Appear to be" is of course doing some heavy lifting here: unless someone wants to literally surveil the company and publish the results, and expect that to be illegal because otherwise it makes NDAs pointless, we're all in the dark).
- benreesman 2y agoTo borrow the catchphrase of one of my favorite hackers ever: “correct”.